Posts Tagged ‘barbie’

We have lifted the moratorium on Barbie. There were several factors, and one of the biggest was kindergarten peer pressure. Yep. You read that right. We just decided our discomfort with Barbie was not worth the tears and stress our daughter experienced over not having some of the same toys as other girls in her class. Now before some of you go postal on me, let me say: its Barbie. Not a crack pipe. We feel that some level of “what everyone else is doing” is actually important to their social lives. They need to be conversant in certain things like sports, tv shows, music and, yes, Barbie in order to function in their social world. Just like adults.

Before you cry, “That’s insane! Adults don’t have to conform!” I have a friend who loathes sports, thinks most of them are barbaric, and yet knew he needed to keep up with at least 2 major sports (he chose baseball and college basketball) to have conversations with people in his office in order to maintain effective working relationships. He also knew he had to take up golf because the reality is much of the business he is successful at gets done on the golf course. Ridiculous? Of course. But reality.

Sounds like a crazy parallel, but in reality it is the same thing as my daughter needing to be conversant in Barbie. Again, we’re not handing her a crack pipe or even a Wii or Nintendo DS. We aren’t going to give in to her every whim every time she whines about “what everyone else has.” But Barbie wasn’t a big enough deal for us to take a philosophical stand, like with, say hooker dollsBratz.

I have a Barbie complex. I hate them. I didn’t play with them when I was little, and so of course my daughter loves them and is a real “girlie-girl.” I have embraced my inner princess when it comes to the girlie stuff (loads of nail polish, glitter, pink fluff, pink, and oh yes pink). But Barbie makes me gag. The ‘free-range‘ parent in me sits on one shoulder saying, “Get over yourself! It’s just a freaking doll with boobs!” And the grossed-out parent in me sits on the other shoulder saying, “It’s a freaking doll with boobs!”

I feel like we’re all assaulted with images of women that are gratuitous and unreal, why on earth would I give my daughter (or my sons, for that matter) a doll who looks like that to play with? I struggle, because Barbie and her friends are so much a part of the pretend play that little girls engage in at this age. I am aware that my adult eye see “hooker” and my daughter’s 5-year-old eyes see “doll with breasts like mommy.” She has no frame of reference to connect Barbie’s body with hers. Yet I just can’t get past this aversion. We’ve encouraged pretend play with baby dolls – trust me, my Shayna has plenty of dolls, doll accessories, doll everything. She loves it and she spends literally hours either by herself or with friends playing with these dolls. Yet every. single. time. we go to Target she asks for a Barbie. All her friends have them, and I know even at 5 this is an issue for her (a total girl thing. my boys were not aware of this kind of social stuff for years. and clearly, based on their lack of desire to shower, still aren’t).